Beyond Broken(133)

       
        

And Caleb knew that it was all innocent but it just served as a reminder that his daughter was two already … and in the blink of an eye she'd been a teenager and he'd have to start worrying about boys for real. There was no fucking way that she'd even be allowed to date until she was thirty, but Kinsley was going to be a sneaky one and Caleb would have to keep an eye out.

His gaze sought out Maddie's and she chuckled when she saw his frustration. She broke away from the girls and came up behind him, leaning down to drape her arms down his chest. "Don't worry, papa bear," she teased. "She's two."

"Who the hell is that kid anyway?" he grumbled, taking a long pull from his beer. "Where are his parents? I'd like to talk to them."

Luke thought it was fucking hilarious, Adam looked amused too, but at least Alex understood why he was unsettled, since him and Olivia were also having a girl. Alex shot him a sympathetic look before his eyes sought out his very pregnant wife.

Maddie's soft laugh in his ear calmed him down a little and she leaned over him to give him a kiss. "I'll go get your little girl."

Caleb watched as his wife's hips swayed over to Kinsley and as she dropped down into a crouch to greet their daughter's friend. That same frantic panic scratched at his chest as he watched her because he loved her so damned much that it frightened him.

Sometimes, he still couldn't believe that it had been over two years since that autumn night she'd stumbled into his garage. With all the ups and downs of the beginning of their relationship, with the pregnancy, with Caleb's own stubbornness … sometimes he was surprised that Maddie had chosen to be with him. Once Kinsley had been born, then came the late, exhausted nights of caring for an infant, of Maddie juggling school and being a mom and a wife, of Caleb running a business and being a dad and a husband.

No, it hadn't been easy.

But it had been so damn worth it, he thought, as he watched his family from across the backyard of the house that Kinsley would grow up in, the house that him and Maddie would grow old in together.

Two years ago, he would've never thought that he would've been so lucky as to find her. Now, he believed they were meant to be. Maddie had found him, late one night, when he'd least expected it.

Through her, Caleb had finally found happiness.





The End